Bear Head

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard, Nathan Osgood, William Hope

In a sequel to the much-praised Dogs of War, Honey the genetically engineered bear takes a ride in Jimmy the Martian's head and starts a revolution on the Red Planet.

Mars. The red planet. A new frontier for humanity: a civilisation where humans can live in peace, lord and master of all they survey.

But this isn't Space City from those old science-fiction books. It's more like Hell City, built into and from a huge crater. There's a big silk canopy over it, feeding out atmosphere as we generate it, little by little, because we can't breathe the air here.

I guess it's a perfect place to live, if you want to live on Mars. At some point I must have wanted to live on Mars, because here I am. The money was supposed to be good, and how else was a working Joe like me going to get off-planet exactly? But I remember the videos they showed us - guys, not even in suits, watching robots and bees and Bioforms doing all the work - and they didn't quite get it right.

©2021 Adrian Tchaikovsky (P)2021 W F Howes

Doesn't live up to the original

Narration was good, despite some minor editing mistakes.

Not Tchaikovsky's best writing. Although the portrayal of the demagogue as political parasite is interesting, the novel fails to engage me completely; it simply lacks the emotional weight of Rex's story. Decent world building of Mars and its inhabitants, and overall not a bad sci fi work. While it kept me entertained and I don't regret the purchase, this book is mostly just that: almost idle entertainment. Perhaps expecting it to live up to dogs of war isn't entirely fair, but I was hoping for more.

Trigger Warning

I only got partway into this one. Like anything from AT, it has spectacular and deep foundations to its world building and seems on par with his other - highly excellent - writing. But within the first third of the book I made it through, there were two graphic SA scenes, one a full r*pe description. To AT’s credit, they are victim focused and a genuine part of plot/character development, and don’t read like the author writing out a personal fantasy (as often seems the case in sci-fi SA scenes). But that made it all the more real - as a survivor, I had days of anxiety and nightmares following listening to this, and had to shelve the book. I wish I had known and been better prepared before picking it up, and wanted to give anyone with similar experience a heads up. However, without such a personal history I doubt a reader will find these scenes over the top or a barrier to reading it.